Sector Governor Marius Hax
“Knowledge is power. Do not waste it on the masses.” — Sector Governor Marius Hax Lord Hax (whose formally correct title is “Lord Sector” or “Lord Calixis”) is descended from an ancient family of Terran stock, a bloodline bred for leadership in the Imperial heartland of the Segmentum Solar. He was appointed governor of the sector by the High Lords of the Adeptus Terra more than one hundred and fifty years ago, and maintains a firm, unflinching grip on the planets under his control. The Lord Sector is a man of immense gravitas and solemnity, a glowering, intimidating presence at the heart of the Lucid Palace on Scintilla. Hax makes few public appearances, and personal audiences are rare. His devotion to the minutiae of leadership is legendary---it is said that he sleeps just four hours a night, and personally reviews the daily fiscal and economic reports in great detail. His reputation in the sector at large is therefore chilly and austere: he is popularly mocked as an unsmiling hardliner and administrative stickler, and also feared as a figure of unsympathetic authority. This widely accepted image, however, misses the essential truth. He is a painfully fair, even-handed man, devoted to the principles of ordered rule. The Lord Sector's house, House Hax, has a powerful relationship to one of the fanes of Gunmetal City, Fane Orthlack. Together, they form the Hax-Orthlack conglomerate that supplies arms to many of the forces of the sector, including the Scintillan police force, the Magistratum. In person, he is tall and granite-featured, and dresses in starkly simple dark robes, eschewing all aristocratic finery. He is over two hundred Scintillan years old, though modest juvenat treatments make him appear to be a robust fifty year old. Hax is not a man to be trifled with, nor underestimated. The Lord Sector is driven by his convictions, not in the right or even divine authority of the Imperium, but in the absolute necessity of order and obedience for the survival of the human race. Hax cares little for events on individual planets and is even dismissive of happenings on Scintilla (of which he is nominally planetary governor). He cannot be distracted by the fates of a few million citizens here and there and is more concerned with the big picture, levying correct tithes and collecting them, monitoring psykers and rebellious groups (Hax despises rebels above all others, including cultists and witches) and maintaining the conspicuous majesty of the Imperium. Hax is surrounded by a lavish court populated by representatives and advisors from organizations and worlds across the sector. He values good advisors and is willing to listen to them, as long as they do not overstep the mark and openly contradict his philosophies. Hax has the power to request military assistance from the Segmentum Governor on distant Cypra Mundi, but he is loathe to do so. The Calixis Sector is his, and his presence and the activities of his adepts should be enough to awe its citizens into obedience. His niece, Lady Etula Vellomina Hax, is rumored to be the true identity of the Spire Stalker. Such rumors do not please him and he desires that the true culprit be found and denies the possibility that it could be her. 'Hax's Inner Circle' “Let there be no where that my eyes cannot see.” –secret proclamation by Lord Sector Marius Hax Those who move close to those circles of power at the Lucid Palace on Scintilla, or with enough resource to pay to hear the talk of the court, know that Lord Sector Marius Hax is a savagely ambitious and paranoid figure. He despises rebels with a malice and a hatred that borders on outright madness. His determination to maintain the glorious and obedient dominion of the Emperor in the Calixis Sector---under his name of course---is worth to him any bloodshed or terror. As a man, subtle and clever, as well as brutal, since attaining his high rank, he has forged many tools to tighten his control over the sector and some have been more successful than others. These are as much his work as it is the work of the Isstvanians who have infiltrated his court---radical Inquisitorial agents who have making Hax increase the military power of the Lord Sector’s office beyond its direct necessity and secure the armed forces loyal to him alone. One of those tools, whose success has been mixed, is the notorius Chaliced Commissariat. These manipulators are also nudging the Lord Sector’s perception and mental state further and further into fear of rebellion, sedition, and conspiracy. Inch by inch, they are creating Marius Hax as a fanatic who will rise to a crisis at the head of a tide of blood and iron. Such a deadly crisis is surely not far off. This action has, however, has not escaped the attention of another radical Inquisitorial faction. The Recongregators devote special attention to the infiltration of the Lucid Court and the circles of influence around the Sector Governor himself. As the embodiment of Imperial authority in the sector, Hax is a disastrous ruler from the perspective of Recongregators, being both highly conventional and obsessed with the maintenance of order and Imperial tradition. The fact that Hax’s authoritarian streak and reasoned loathing of change has seemed to drift into paranoia and despotism is of critical concern. Desperate operations to destabilize Hax’s power base amongst the planetary defense and enforcer forces have so far proved fruitless, while the sphere of influence around the Lord Sector has proved impenetrable to infiltration. A number of Recongregators are becoming increasingly desperate to loose Hax’s stagnating grip on the sector and have banded into a cell known to its hidden membership as the Lucid Concern. Though they have yet to determine a course of direct action, the Lucid Concern is united in the absolute belief that the longer Hax’s rule is allowed to calcify into immobility, the more extreme the solutions that can and should be contemplated to end it. So far, the group has been held back by the fear of accidentally destabilizing the entire sector in the process.